Emperor Taizong Heavenly Kaghan and Son of Heaven. Turks in Tang military

[-blitzkrieg-]

the idea of china is different from the western idea of countries. the name "china" (middle kingdom) has been around to refer to the civilization for 1000s of years. each dynasty refers to itself not just by the dynastic name but also that they represent china the civilization. its kind of like how rome had different dynastic ruling families but they all ruled the roman empire and when egypt falls under roman control you would generally say that rome controlled egypt not Julio-Claudian dynasty controlled egypt.

In my post above I've mentioned when exactly china was mentioned zhonghua for the first time a name used till date.it wasntt 1000s of years ago like you claim..medieval dynasties used other names for the region. That's why when we talk about pharaohs of Egypt.. we say ancient egypt.. which is different from current Egypt. We dont say Italy was once a world power.. So there is always a way to describe historic kingdoms and states.

 

[retaxis]

Tang Dynasty is beaten by Muslim Arab and this is why Central Asian, including Turk, become Muslim

There are certain historical battles, which had very little influence immediately but changed things through the centuries. The battle of Talas between the Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Empire in 751 is a good example of such a conflict. It changed the religious outlook of Central Asia as Buddhism was slowly pushed out and Islam took its place, was crucial in changing the faith of the Turkic tribes. Later on the Seljuk Turks moved to the West, and that was one of the reasons for the Crusades. Historians also think that this battle was important for the Renaissance, as the papermaking made its way to Europe after it.

Prior to the battle of Talas China won all skirmishes against the Arabs. It took the Turks betraying the Chinese and joining the Arabs side in the middle of a battle for the Arabs to win. Nevertheless the Arabs in turn betrayed the turks (ottomans) centuries later. What goes around comes around i guess.

 

[applesauce]

In my post above I've mentioned when exactly china was mentioned zhonghua for the first time a name used till date.it wasntt 1000s of years ago like you claim..medieval dynasties used other names for the region. That's why when we talk about pharaohs of Egypt.. we say ancient egypt.. which is different from current Egypt. We dont say Italy was once a world power.. So there is always a way to describe historic kingdoms and states.

except you are actually wrong in this case. there is clear evidence. there is very much a greater than 1000 year history.

"china" in chinese is 中国 sometimes call 中华 (zhonghua), but that refers more to the people (but not strictly so), ie: the country of china vs chinese people.

in writing, as early as the Jin dynasty 317 ad- 420 ad, a general of the ruling dynasty, 桓温 , had mentioned zhonghua when referring to china in one of his essays, 请还都洛阳疏 .

中国 is directly written down from even earlier, from the Han dynasty before jesus christ was even born。

"Five stars rising in the East" armband - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

the words on that over 2000 year old arm protector is basically readable to modern chinese without any training in ancient languages.

and these are just the actual written down examples. stories and oral traditions tells us that these names referred to china from even longer ago, at least as far back as the zhou dynasty, 1046 bc to 256 bc possibly even back to the time when Yu the great founded the semi-mythical xia dynasty 2070 bc ~ 1600 BC in some stories.

in your example of egypt, yes we refer to ancient egypt vs modern egypt but that's because the two is completely different. they're not even the same people, ancient egypt died out. hieroglyphs is a dead language, egyptian gods and temples are no longer worshipped, there's no ancient egyptian customs that survives in everyday life. hell, the ancient egyptians would have no idea what you mean if you told them you are from " مِصر" . but if you go back thousands of years to Han china and told them you are from 中國/中国 they would know you are referring to china, the same land they are from(though they might then ask which part of china since china has always been quite a large country).

therein lies the difference, china never died out, its language evolves but is clearly directly from ancient chinese, its traditional gods still have active temples and its people has referred to their civilizational state as china for millennia

now if you are saying "medieval china“ referring roughly the medieval time period the that is completely fine, when talking about time periods there is stone age china, bronze age china, iron age china, imperial china, medieval china, premodern and modern china. but there is no medieval china that is a completely separate state from modern china in the same sense as ancient egypt vs modern egypt.

 

[retaxis]

 

[-blitzkrieg-]

except you are actually wrong in this case. there is clear evidence. there is very much a greater than 1000 year history.

"china" in chinese is 中国 sometimes call 中华 (zhonghua), but that refers more to the people (but not strictly so), ie: the country of china vs chinese people.

in writing, as early as the Jin dynasty 317 ad- 420 ad, a general of the ruling dynasty, 桓温 , had mentioned zhonghua when referring to china in one of his essays, 请还都洛阳疏 .

中国 is directly written down from even earlier, from the Han dynasty before jesus christ was even born。

"Five stars rising in the East" armband - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

the words on that over 2000 year old arm protector is basically readable to modern chinese without any training in ancient languages.

and these are just the actual written down examples. stories and oral traditions tells us that these names referred to china from even longer ago, at least as far back as the zhou dynasty, 1046 bc to 256 bc possibly even back to the time when Yu the great founded the semi-mythical xia dynasty 2070 bc ~ 1600 BC in some stories.

in your example of egypt, yes we refer to ancient egypt vs modern egypt but that's because the two is completely different. they're not even the same people, ancient egypt died out. hieroglyphs is a dead language, egyptian gods and temples are no longer worshipped, there's no ancient egyptian customs that survives in everyday life. hell, the ancient egyptians would have no idea what you mean if you told them you are from " مِصر" . but if you go back thousands of years to Han china and told them you are from 中國/中国 they would know you are referring to china, the same land they are from(though they might then ask which part of china since china has always been quite a large country).

therein lies the difference, china never died out, its language evolves but is clearly directly from ancient chinese, its traditional gods still have active temples and its people has referred to their civilizational state as china for millennia

now if you are saying "medieval china“ referring roughly the medieval time period the that is completely fine, when talking about time periods there is stone age china, bronze age china, iron age china, imperial china, medieval china, premodern and modern china. but there is no medieval china that is a completely separate state from modern china in the same sense as ancient egypt vs modern egypt.

But China back then was a smaller kingdom around a river and not exactly the china region it encompasses today.So that was zhonghua. not the whole present day China.